In case anyone is wondering which teen and YA series are popular around here, this is our latest "Coming soon..." board with the upcoming releases our students are peeing their pants in excitement about.
As you'll see below, the two obvious trends in popular teen/YA fiction are 1) authors who probably don't really write their own books anymore because their names are so bankable anything with their name on it will sell, and 2) "tangential" series fiction, which is confusing to library workers because the same author will have 2 series going that look the same but they're not.

Here's the run-down of upcoming series fiction:

September 19th: James Patterson's & Ned Rust's Daniel X: Game Over, which is #4 in the "Daniel X" series. The title makes you think it's the last in the series but we've been tricked by teen series before, like Eragon, which was supposed to be a trilogy but turned into a 4-book sequence.

September 20th: Heather Brewer's First Kill, first in the "Slayer Chronicles," which is kind of a tangential series to her super popular "Vladimir Tod" series, only this time it's told from the vampire SLAYER'S viewpoint. Necessary? Not sure, but the kids will want to read it.

October 11th: James Dashner's The Death Cure, 3rd and supposedly final in the "Maze Runner" trilogy. Like I said, we've been tricked by "trilogies" before, so if this dystopian series continues to make money, the publisher might pressure Mr. Dashner into making a four or five-book "trilogy."

November 15th: Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever, #6 in the "Wimpy Kid" series. It's like the new "Captain Underpants" or something. Ugh.

December 5th: James Patterson's & Jill Dembowski's The Fire, #3 in the "Witch & Wizard" series. Patterson. Hmph. Sick o' him. He's juggling too many plates and they're gonna start crashing. Besides, so much of his stuff is written WITH other writers, how much of it is he even really doing these days? I think he's just a brand, now. Maybe James Patterson doesn't even EXIST, like Franklin W. Dixon or Carolyn Keene. Have you ever seen him in person? I haven't. He's an urban legend. Nobody can write that many books.

December 6th:Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare, #2 in "The Infernal Devices" series. This is a tangential/simultaneous series (like Heather Brewer's above) that co-exists with Clare's continuing "Mortal Instruments" series. Clare is actually writing the two series at the same time. Both take place in the same fantasy world, but along different timelines. Confused? Read the author's explanation of this HERE. I haven't made up my mind yet if I find that impressive or annoying.

Here's a few other bonus upcoming releases we also have posted behind the counter:

October 4th: Rick Riordan's Son of Neptune, #2 in the "Heroes of Olympus" series. It's like a whole sequel series to the "Percy Jackson" series, about the next group of young kids at Camp Half-Blood. Not quite as annoying as a tangential series, but I still have to keep explaining it to students.

November 4th: Christopher Paolini's Inheritance, #4 in the Eragon, or "Inheritance" series. Which was supposed to be a trilogy.